The alien world of the unknown

I recently started a job at SECTION6, and to be honest I feel way out of my depth.

Firstly, let’s get something straight. I’d like to think I know my stuff when it comes to enterprise IT. I’ve been solving problems since pre-2k, but all of this experience has no bearing on what I walked into…

I feel like I’ve stepped into another world where species such as nodejs or kubernetes go about their days performing strange tasks. They pull and push their objects between some sort of cloud-deity named git. There are many other species in this world, but because they’re so different they use Camel, Kafka, or Fuse to communicate. And they build their structures with tools such as yaml or ruby or python.

Initially I want to turn around, climb into my spaceship and hop back to my own world, but then one of the Aliens offer me a handshake. Ok, I’m familiar with this…

I slowly learn some basic communication skills with these alien lifeforms. Next, I find that I’m relating some of these new experiences to what I know back home. Finally, I realise I’m starting to enjoy my new company using alien technology.

I still feel a little overwhelmed with my new way of working. It’s taken a bit of effort to change my mindset to this new world. There is something new to learn every day and that’s what makes it interesting.

We all have fears of the unknown. It’s inherent within all of us and probably stems back to our cave-dwelling days where if we ventured too far, something would kill us.

We should not let this stop us.
Yes, the unknown could hurt us.
Yes, the unknown is scary.
Yes, the unknown is alien.

But

How will you know whether it’ll be good or not without taking the plunge and going for it?